CAT experience

6th Dec ’09:
After a year of start stop preparation, here I was to write CAT. My centre was RVCE. It is one of the prestigious colleges in Bangalore with state of art infrastructure. Hence I chose it as my centre. I arrived at centre at 7 AM. My dad had arranged for a cab to make my journey to the centre smooth and comfortable.
The security guard informed that entry opens at 8:30. So I spent a boring 1 and half hour in the car. I wasn’t even allowed to explore the sprawling campus. At 8:30 we were allowed to go to the computer centre where our test was going to be administered. There were four labs in which were allotted for the tests. My lab was on the first floor. After a half hour wait in queue a prometric guy allowed us to get in after checking our credentials. I deposited all my belongings at the security and moved to the lab. At the lab, there was a problem with my ID proof. I had taken my college ID as ID proof. My DOB was wrongly printed as 240588 instead of 89. This caused a problem and I was asked to get another id proof. Luckily I had my driving license to prove that I was born in 89. This brought in some nervousness . After that, I had to go through some biometrics and verification for the 3rd time!!
After the three layered check in process I was allotted my seat(S 15). I switched on my PC and there were over a dozen passwords which were keyed in by the proctor before the test interface came up flashing my photo that they took at check in. For another half hour I had nothing to do except for staring at my photo on the screen. At 9:45 were allowed to go through a tutourial video about the test interface.
At 10 Am , the test started off. We had to agree to the customary NDA before we started with our test. The first set of questions were from quant. It was a mixed bag ranging from sitters to complicated questions. It took me around 55 minutes to get throught he quant section. Next up was DI but I decided to skip it and move to verbal as I was tired of calculations that I had done in quant. But verbal gave me no respite. The RC were at its best and to make things difficult , the options were too close to eliminate. None of the options I was sure of. I had to go with a few guesses. Other than that, Parajumbles and Fill in the blanks were of moderate level giving me an opportunity to rush through and make up for the lost time in RC and quant. By the time I was done with verbal section I was left with around 40-45 minutes for DI. The DI however had a lot of sets and required much more time. I had to let go a few sets involving complicated calculations. However the remaining sets were direct and it wasn’t difficult to arrive at an option. On the whole , my CAT experience was like a roller coaster with certain highs and lows. Jan 22nd will determine what were in majority..highs or lows?